Review Summary: Come on, let's go driving...
A concept without a narrative…
Dangerous in idea, but perfect in execution.
At this stage in their careers, QOTSA had spent their first two albums trying to shake off the ‘stoner rock’ tag that had followed them since the death of Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri’s former band Kyuss.
What was to follow was the ‘breakout record’ – a tag that was earned initially by the standard of the singles.
‘
No One Knows’ amped up the underlying silliness from the previous two records, repackaged it with a layer of slick, pompous production, and whacked on a daft video – which as a package created the perfect slice of non-nu-metal radio rock that 2002 was screaming out for.
When ‘
Go With The Flow’ followed, the production was more stripped, in came utter simplicity in the songwriting, a gorgeous and fuzzy guitar line melted over the top, and rock’n’roll reigned for 3 minutes.
So, with two accessible but very individual singles, the tone, it seems, was set.
But those who purchased
Songs For The Deaf on the strength of these (and a little later with the release of ‘
First It Giveth’ - complete with entirely too much bassist penis in the video) were to be rewarded in a way that the singles barely scratched the surface of.
From the second the car door shuts, the radio dial teases what’s to come, and the opening bars of ‘
…Millionaire’ resonate, this record forces you to buckle up in the passenger seat, keep quiet, and enjoy the ride.
This song absolutely slays as an opener, Oliveri’s yelps and barks punctuating Homme’s relentless riffing, and it lodges into the brain, like
Rated R’s ‘
Quick And To The Pointless’s no-nonsense, straight-A-student younger brother.
While this song is only really equalled by ‘
Six Shooter’ for brazen heaviness, the record doesn’t rely on it, happily reigning in the aggression in favour of muddy ambience and anti-pop.
It’s this attitude (aided heroically by Mark Lanegan on his three vocal contributions) that aids this record to snarl, growl and unsettle from beginning to end.
There’s a couple of numbers reminiscent of The Kinks on a mescaline fix (sorry Josh, the stoner reference had to crop up somewhere) such as ‘
Another Love Song’ and ‘
Gonna Leave You’, two thoroughly bleak tracks dressed up in smart production that echoes the influences of their 60’s counterparts whilst keeping a dirty, Queens-trademarked gritty overall sound, enabling the record to flow uninterrupted.
One thing this record does brilliantly is exude sleaze, from Lanegan’s mutters and croaks, to Oliveri’s unpolished yet dominant bass hooks, through to Homme’s utterly filthy guitar licks – all held together by Dave Grohl smashing a surprisingly tight kit like his life depends on it.
To return to the frontman, Homme is an absolute guitar virtuoso, without relying on any of the overproduced clichés that tend to hamper that label.
His consistent tone is murky and drenched in fuzz, no solo ever outstays it’s welcome, and he never lets wankery (for want of a better word) hold back his undeniable skill – often one note will say more than 27 ever will.
It’s near impossible to pick out specific highlights from this album, as every track holds it’s own reward – but it would be remiss to not mention the Lanegan-dominated rock’n’roller ‘
Song For The Dead’, the Balkan-infused, brass-tinged acoustic ‘
Mosquito Song’, the crushingly hypnotic ‘
Hanging Tree’, and the frankly terrifying ‘
Song For The Deaf’.
With every twist and turn, the songs glide and fuse into each other seamlessly. Even with the punctuation of the radio station non-sequiturs, nothing sounds broken up, making a solid hour of sleaze and sex.
There are no low points on this record – at a push the worst one can say is that the bonus track Kinks cover ‘
Everybody Gonna Be Happy’ would probably have suited the flow of
Era Vulgaris a little better than on here.
But *** the subtleties. It’s a 5. It’s
Songs For The Deaf. The blind can go get ***ed, after all…
